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146Polyphony in Jewish musicPolyphonic singing is not a very common feature of Jewish traditional music andliturgical service. “Despite efforts by German immigrants who introduced their choraltradition to synagogues in Haifa in the 1930s, and by Sephardi musicians such asRahamim Amar (in Sephardi synagogues the choir sang in unison), few synagoguesemploy a trained choir. This lack of choral music can be traced to the fact that theorthodox establishment identified choral music with non-orthodox synagogues, and it hasled to a lack of a native choral repertoire for the synagogue in Israel (unlike Europe andNorth America)” (Seroussi, 2002:205). As far as I know, the elements of vocalpolyphony in Jewish music were first studied by M. Ravina, who delivered a paper at theAnthropological Congress in Moscow in 1964. This issue was specially researched inmore detail by Gerson-Kiwi in her 1968 publication (re-published in 1980). Interestingly,despite the generally accepted fact that “choirs have not made an inroad into the Israelisynagogue” (Seroussi, 2002:205), polyphony is observed mostly in synagogue singing.More specifically, Gerson-Kiwi discusses three regional styles of Jewish polyphony:Yemen Jews, the Samaritans and Corfu Jews (with a plenty of musical examples).Yemenite part-singing is connected to the liturgical forms, and Gerson-Kiwimentions them as “Psalm-polyphony or a prayer-polyphony” (Gerson-Kiwi, 1980:69).She distinguishes four forms of polyphony among Yemenite Jews:( a) Vocal drone (exists in prayers). This is two-part singing with a drone. Themelody has a short range – third only (A-C). With the additional tone “G” the rangeincreases to a fourth. Dissonant seconds are frequent between the drone and the melody.“As the diapason is so narrow, the main interval is the second, but the sharp dissonantclusters do not in the least irritate the singers: their auditive perception can only followthe horizontal path, and in this selective hearing the chords simply do not exist. But theydo exist for the unbiased observer and they have to be registered as a definite style ofpart-singing” (Gerson-Kiwi , 1980:70). Generally, I am always skeptical about the ideathat “singers do not hear these clashing intervals”, and Gerson Kiwi herself writes later inthis article (see later) about secondal dissonances that they “seems to be so congenial tothe Yemenite singers that there can be no question of haphazard intonation” (Gerson-Kiwi. 1980:72).(b) Choral polyphony of acclamations in Organum Technique (in Asmorot). Thisis a massed response from the entire congregation (including children) singing in a looseorganum of many different pitches. The author mentions that East African mass choruseshave the same kind of “sound columns” as in the Yemenite Jews’ singing. According toGerson-Kiwi this singing style must be very close to the real sound of the medievalorganum (According to Riemann’s 1898 publication, parallel fourths and fifths from themedieval musical tractates were considered to be a theoretical abstraction. Theappearance of the Icelandic tradition of two-part parallel singing in perfect fifths changedthe attitude towards the early organum practice)(c) Vocal ostinato technique (in psalm reading). This form is based onsimultaneous singing of the main tune and accompanying short ostinato-motifs. Ostinatomotiveis developed around the tonic, and Gerson-Kiwi considers it to be “another trendoriginating from a basic drone form”.(d) Heterophonic part-singing (in religious hymns). Heterophonic singing starts asan organum, but “very soon softens down to a heterophonic singing in the narrowest